ON the journey of life you walk between truth and falsehood. There are holy prophets who strive to direct you in the right pathway; there are also false prophets who seek to seduce you and to lead you astray. To avoid these false prophets you must know them. This shall be easy for you, since you may judge them by their works. " By their fruits you shall know them."

First Point.—It is in your own heart and in your passions that you shall find the false prophets who are most to be feared. To those perfidious teachers these words of the Saviour are especially appropriate: "They come to you under the appearance of lambs, but within they are ravening wolves." What flatters us more than a passion? What is sweeter to us than its language or more seducing than its promises? Should you listen to it, it will give you happiness and glory—everything will be yours if you consent to open your heart to it and submit to its amiable empire. Thus it is that pleasure promises the sweetest joys. Envy shows us the humiliation of a rival as a most beautiful triumph. But if you are wise you will close your ears to the voices of these sirens, consider their effects, and then judge them.

We read in the Sacred Scriptures that a woman named Jahel, beholding Sisara hurriedly departing, recalled him by the most flattering words: "Come to my house; fear not, for I shall conceal you from the search of your enemies." Sisara returned at this invitation and at first was entertained splendidly. Jahel gave him milk to drink and clothed him with a beautiful mantle, and he slept in fullest confidence. But while he slept this perfidious woman drove a large nail in his head, and he perished a victim to his credulity. And this is what the passions do; they promise life, a happy life, to those who listen to them, but in reality they are the cause of death—at first the death of the soul by inducing to sin; and they often occasion the death of the body, for every one knows how pleasures, intemperance, impurity, and idleness produce a multitude of maladies and infirmities which abridge the life of those who indulge in them.

Sensual pleasures have all the attraction and sweetness of honey; we taste them without suspicion, and relish their delights; little by little, we sleep and forget God, our soul, and eternity. The habit of living only a material and sensual life becomes as the nail which binds us to the earth, and we are miserably lost. Guard well, therefore, against the voice of passions; learn to rule them, otherwise you shall become their slave; and what greater misfortune can there be than such a slavery!

Second Point.—The second kind of false prophet you should mistrust is the world, or rather the respectable worldlings. If you have to deal with men who are known as infidels or libertines, you will have less to fear, because you will be on your guard. But the men whom you are to question have a reputation for honesty and respectability, and it is this very morality which puts aside every suspicion. They come to you with a smile on their lips, and oh, how charming their language is! It has all the sweetness of honey. Youth must have its pleasures, and to interdict a young person from balls, theatres, and certain books is a species of cruelty! Religion must not exact privations which are beyond human strength! God has not created man to make him miserable, and to forbid him the pleasures of the world is to rob him of every happiness! This is the language of your respectable worldly man, this is what he will tell you, and such are the false prophets of whom you must beware. Judge of them by their fruits. And what are the effects of those books which your respectable worldling counsels you to read? They exaggerate the imagination, falsify the judgment, place the soul outside the limits of truth, and feed it withchimeras. Romantic ideas, loss of time, forgetfulness of the most sacred duties, distaste for life, and, consequently, suicide—behold the fruits of those readings which some shall tell you are innocent!

With regard to the pleasures of the world, unquestionably they are not all equally criminal, but experience proves how sad, how disastrous they are to virtue. Distaste for piety, abandonment of prayer, hardness of heart, a spirit of vanity and of pride—behold the least consequences of those pleasures to which the world agrees! The distaste for piety and abandonment of prayer. How can we bring to prayer the recollection it requires on returning from a ball, when the senses and imagination are full of excitement from all we have seen and heard?

Hardness of heart. A person in the midst of the world, accustomed to the society of happy people, never dreams of the sufferings of the poor; if we behold misery, we turn our eyes away in disgust; and, besides, vanity absorbs our resources to satisfy the demands of style and dress, and we never have anything to give to the poor. Be on your guard, therefore, against the world, its maxims, its examples, and especially its pleasures; never forget that one cannot serve two masters; you must stand for virtue or vanity, for God or the world.

Third Point.—The third kind of false prophets which you should mistrust is composed of all the enemies of the Church. Here also the most dangerous are not the unbelievers. They do not come under the shepherd's staff, they do not dissemble, and on that account it is more easy for you to be on your guard against their impious words. Heresy is more to be feared because it conceals the poison of error under the appearance of truth. It is not inclined to show itself such as it is, or to uncover its designs and to plainly expose its thoughts. It strives to conceal and disguise and hide itself under the staff of the faithful shepherd. To hear some speak, you would think them the true children of the Church, wholly submissive to all her decisions. Equivocations are not their least defects. They place the Church where it seems good for them, and they recognize only those decisions which do not attack their errors. They appear to labor only for God, they call themselves His envoys, and promise to conduct souls to salvation. They support their doctrine by a certain regularity of life; their exterior is edifying and composed; but under a simple garb, under a mortified exterior, they conceal a spirit of fury and hatred, and carry destruction and division everywhere; they are the ravening wolves in the midst of the flocks of Jesus Christ. But the sheep should fly from them, avoid their assemblies, reject their books, and close their ears to their misleading discourses. As an excuse for your relations with the enemies of your faith, you say that you do not indulge in religious disputes. Now either this is to hold your salvation and your religion as worth but little, or you fail to distinguish two things most distinct. Without doubt, all the faithful are not obliged to enter into the depths of disputed matters between Catholics and heretics, but all should be on their guard, lest they give their confidence to false prophets, lest they follow a false doctrine, a doctrine condemned by the Church. This is a precept of Jesus Christ. If through want of this attention you are seduced or led astray, you can have no excuse. To say also that we should not judge any one is to misconstrue the words of Jesus, and to forget that in the same chapter where He forbids us to judge He commands us to be most attentive and watchful.

O my God, how many false doctors strive to mislead me, by preaching to me a doctrine and maxims which are contrary to Thy doctrine and Thy maxims. Save me, Lord, from the pitfalls which surround my pathway, and do not permit that I should ever cease to hear Thy commandments, Thou who art the Way, the Truth, and the Life.

Source: Short Instructions on the Feasts of the Year, Imprimatur 1897

Mary, Immaculate Virgin, Mother of God and our Mother, thou seest how the Catholic Faith is assailed by the devil and the world, that Faith in which we purpose, by the help of God, to live and die. To thee do we entrust our firm purpose of never joining assembles of heretics. Do thou, all holy, offer to thy divine Son our resolutions, and obtain from Him the graces necessary for us to keep them unto the end. Amen.

THE KNOWLEDGE OF JESUS CHRIST"I judge not myself to know anything among you but Jesus Christ, and Him crucified" (I Cor. 2. 2).What does all our knowledge, all our science amount to, if we do not know Jesus Christ? We may be well versed in poetry and literature, in mathematics, in philosophy, in the fine arts, in politics and the science of government, but if we lack the knowledge of Jesus Christ crucified, we are like travelers without light, without means of conveyance, like pupils without a competent teacher. No study is more necessary to us than that of Jesus crucified. If we know Him, we know all it behooves us to know. The great apostle possessed a thorough knowledge of this all-important science, and labored with all his might to impart it to all mankind. By His ministry Jesus Christ is our Saviour, and by His conduct He is our Model. Therefore we should, first lovingly hope in Him, and secondly, imitate Him.I. JESUS CHRIST is OUR SAVIOUR, OUR REDEEMER. He alone deserves this title, for, says St. Peter, "there is no salvation in any other" (Acts 4. 12). He became our Redeemer, first, by making superabundant satisfaction for our sins and thereby freeing us from the slavery of Satan. Adam and his posterity had, through his sin, lost the divine grace and friendship and all right to heaven. Not even all creatures combined could have sufficiently atoned for that sin, or for any other sin. The only-begotten Son of God, infinitely holy and perfect, infinitely beloved by the Father, undertook to atone for the sins of the human race. Loving men, as it were, to excess, He took their punishment upon Himself. He assumed a body and soul like ours, was born, wept, labored and preached, underwent persecution; was betrayed into the power of His enemies, arrested, was struck and bruised, underwent unjust trials, was fearfully scourged, loaded with insults and mockery, abandoned by all, and even by His heavenly Father; and after shedding all His blood, He died the cruel and ignominious death of the cross, thereby appeasing the heavenly Father's wrath against mankind, expiating all their sins, subduing the powers of hell and opening heaven to men. Had Jesus Christ been only God, He could not have suffered all this; had He been merely man, all His sufferings and His death would have proved an insufficient atonement for the sins of men. What a terrible evil must sin be, since it required so great an atonement! The boundless humiliations and horrible sufferings of the Son of God made man tell us the infinite love God bears us, since "He did not spare even His own Son, but delivered Him for us" (Rom. 8. 32), as well as the infinite love of the Son of God for us in taking our sins upon Himself and expiating them at such a cost to Himself ! Secondly, Jesus Christ became our Redeemer by deserving for us the precious graces of salvation. "The law was given by Moses; grace and truth came by Jesus Christ" (John i. 17). We are all inclined to evil, and there is no crime so great, so abominable which we would not commit, were we not restrained by divine grace. Jesus Christ, by His passion and death, obtained for us all the graces we need to overcome temptation, the assaults of the world, of Satan and of our own passions, to bear every cross and trial, every suffering, to overcome every obstacle to our salvation, to practise even the most difficult acts of virtue and to sanctify ourselves by leading a holy life, so much so, that St. Paul declares: "Where sin abounded, grace abounded still more" (Rom. 5. 20); so much so that the greatest sinners can, by the graces Jesus has gained, be come great saints. "I can do all things in Him who strengtheneth me." (Phil. 4. 13). The power of the sacraments, of prayer and of the other means of salvation, is derived entirely from the merits of Jesus Christ's passion and death. Thirdly, Jesus Christ became our Redeemer, our Saviour by deserving heaven for us. Every one in heaven will enjoy perfect happiness according to his capacity, for Jesus Christ says : "In My Father s house there are many mansions. ... I go to prepare a place for you. ... I will come again to take you to Myself, that, where I am, you also may be" (John 14. 2, 3). Jesus Christ, although He is now in heaven, still performs the office of our High Priest, of our Advocate and Mediator, of our loving Father. By His Passion and death He acquired for us a right to heaven and its unspeakable happiness. This is another testimony of His love for us, since He wishes us to be where He is and to share His happiness and glory. How ardently, then, we should love Him and confide in Him! "Happy is the people whose God is the Lord" (Ps. 143. 15). Happy are we, if we lovingly trust in Him, but more happy still if we take;II. JESUS CHRIST AS OUR MODEL. All Christians are bound under pain of eternal damnation to imitate Jesus Christ as their Model. St. Paul expressly declares, that only those are saved who are "conformable to the image of the Son of God"; (Rom. 8. 29). It behooves us, then, to imitate His charity, full of patience, meekness, compassion and zeal for our neighbor, His modesty, purity, love of prayer, His patience, His obedience and resignation to the divine will, and to practice self-denial and carry our cross after Him. The sources of sin in the world are, says the beloved disciple, "the concupiscence of the flesh, the concupiscence of the eyes and the pride of life"; (i John 2. 16). The conduct of Jesus Christ will teach us how to combat these sources of sin.

I. In the first place, the poverty practised by Jesus Christ teaches us contempt for mere worldly riches. We are destined to possess God Himself. By sin we lost God, but not our desire for perfect happiness. Men mostly seek this happiness in the acquisition, the accumulation and in the enjoyment of worldly goods. Our divine Saviour, how ever, on becoming man, chose a mother poor in this world's goods, a poverty-stricken place for his birth, a life of labor in poverty, and died bereft of every earthly possession. "The example of Jesus Christ,"; says St. Augustine, "is for us the most efficacious medicine for the cure of our attachment to earthly goods ; the avarice, or undue seeking of wealth which cannot be healed by the example and consideration of Christ s poverty, is simply incurable. "His example teaches the poor to be contented with their poverty for His sake, for "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven" (Matt. 5. 3).

2. Jesus Christ, by His humility teaches us the flight of worldly honors. He was humble in His Incarnation, in choosing a poor Virgin as His Mother, and a stable in an obscure town as His birth-place, in working as a poor carpenter, in allowing the devil to tempt Him, in His sufferings and ignominious death. Hence He says to us: "Learn of Me" not to create the world, to perform wonders or raise the dead to life, but "because I am meek and humble of heart" (Matt. n. 29). Hence St. Augustine says: "What can heal our pride, if the humility of Christ fails to do it?"

3. Jesus Christ by His sufferings condemns our sensuality and love of pleasure. (Enumerate here His hardships, labors and sufferings from His birth to His death.) "What can heal our sensuality and yearning after good cheer and pleasure, if the sufferings and austere life of Jesus Christ fail to do it?" "Christ," says the Prince of the apostles," died for us, leaving you an example, that you may follow His footsteps" (i Pet. 2. 21). On judgment day we shall all appear in presence of the poor, humble and suffering Jesus! Woe to us, if our life "is not found conformable to His! We shall be asked to show our charity and zeal towards our neighbor, our purity, our humility, obedience, detachment from worldly goods, honors and pleasures, our self-denial, meekness and patience, our for giveness of injuries. The blood He shed, His death, His infinite merits will not avail us, if we do not imitate Him, as was prescribed to us: "Look and make according to the pattern shown you in the mount" (Exod. 25. 40). To us He said: "I am the way, the truth and the life" (John 14. 6). Let us be true Christians, true disciples and followers of Jesus Christ. Let us love Him alone, and not the world nor its riches, honors and pleasures, for what has the world done for us, and what can it give us, when this life is over? Let us love and imitate Jesus Christ, our God, our Redeemer, our Benefactor who has suffered and died for us, and who alone can make us happy here and hereafter. Let us be ready to sacrifice all for His sake and thus become worthy of forever sharing His happiness and glory in heaven. Amen.Source: Sermon Matters, Imprimatur 1897

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